


Until you can run away from me

by Pirili



Category: SHINee
Genre: Drama & Romance, F/M, Fluff and Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-02-08 03:26:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12855738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pirili/pseuds/Pirili
Summary: Lee Jinki faces the worst moment of his life when due to an accident he might not be able to walk anymore. His girlfriend abandons him, his parents don’t know how to help him with his depression and he wished for death instead. Lucky for him, Ha-Yun, one of his closest friends, decides to stay beside him until he is able to “run away from her”.





	1. Step One

**Author's Note:**

> Hello~This is my first time posting here.  
> However, this is not my first story and it's based on a drabble I wrote before.  
> I hope you enjoy it! ^^
> 
> The quotes used on the cover and on every chapter come from the book The Orange Girl by Jostein Gaarder. Read it! This same book is mentioned several times during the story.

_“If I’d chosen never to set foot inside the great fairytale, I’d never have known what I’ve lost. Do you see what I’m getting at? Sometimes it’s worse for us human beings to lose something dear to us than never to have had it at all.”_

The Orange Girl, Jostein Gaarder

 

#   **♦** Ha Yun  **♦**

 

 

Park Ha Yun liked to dance. She wasn’t the best dancer and she certainly didn’t have much time to go clubbing since she helped her father run the small market her family owned, and most of the times she was the one who had to do the night shift, but still she tried to meet her friends as often as she could.

She wasn’t that young anymore, 26 years old already, and her family was already pressuring her to marry but Ha Yun didn’t find the person she wanted to marry yet. Well she did find him but he was busy searching for someone else that wasn’t her.

That’s why Ha Yun used the excuse of work to avoid the blind dates her friend found to her and instead looked at the object of her affections with dreamy eyes.

Lee Jinki was his name and he had the most beautiful smile she ever saw.

Ha Yun could remember clear as day how she met him during High school, on the first day of school. How they bumped into each other and he politely helped her gather her things from the floor. He smiled so gently at her introducing himself to her as her new classmate that she knew that moment that maybe falling in love at first sight truly existed. Unfortunately, the feeling wasn’t mutual and Jinki only saw her as one of his best friends.

She was special to him though, that was what their other friends often told her. He treated her like a princess, had long talks with her and was very protective of Ha Yun but that was it. Their special connection never crossed the best friend’s line and after they became adults Ha Yun had to learn how to live seeing Jinki with his girlfriends.

He didn’t change girlfriends very often but once he had one he would date her for long periods, taking her into their group of friends making Ha Yun jealous.

That night was no different. They all went clubbing and Jinki brought his last girlfriend, a tall thin woman with dyed blonde hair and a short dress. She wasn’t very friendly but Jinki seemed to like her for some reason that Ha Yun couldn’t understand.

“I heard she is good in bed.” Dae-Jung, one of their friends told her noticing how she looked at Jinki’s girlfriend. “They are fighting a lot lately so he is probably going to break up with her soon.”

“How do you know all of that?” Ha-Yun asked. Normally Jinki never opened up to her about his girlfriends. They could talk about everything, but their relationship or in her case the lack of, was off limits.

“He tells me stuff. He said he fell for her charms and that she used to be fun to be around. He used to like her but lately she is disappointing him.”

“In bed?”

“No. That is good!” her friend chuckled and Ha Yun frowned drinking her beer. “She is just too self-centered.”

“He never tells me anything about her.”

“That’s because he knows you love him!”

Ha Yun almost spit her beer and turned to Dae-Jun. “I don’t love him!”

“Right! Everyone knows how you feel about him and that’s why he treats you differently, as if you were a fragile creature when we all know you could kick his ass if you want. I think that in a way he loves you too.”

“What?” she couldn’t help but blush, her eyes settling on Jinki that was all smiles dancing with his girlfriend “He could never…”

“Maybe not in the way you want him to love you but we all know how he cares deeply for you.”

Dae-Jun grabbed his beer and walked in the direction of their friends dancing.

Ha Yun watched Jinki knowing that Dae-Jun was right. To Jinki she would always be the good friend, the sister he never had and nothing more.

The blonde woman leaned forward and kissed Jinki and he wrapped his arms around her pulling her into his embrace and that was when Ha Yun had to look away because she couldn’t stand seeing it.

In her wildest dreams Jinki would kiss her, would hug and confess to her that he also fell for Ha Yun at first sight that day they met. That he never confessed before because was afraid to lose his best friend, that he loved her now as a man. They would kiss like that too and things would hit off from there. She would be able to marry the man she loved and everything would make sense.

It was a makjang drama only and she never dared to share those dreams with anyone.

 

 

Ha Yun saw Jinki kiss goodbye her girlfriend before she entered the taxi and then he waved at her stepping back.

“Want a ride home?” He asked Ha Yun.

“Why didn’t you drive your girlfriend home if you are going home to?” she asked ignoring Dae-Jun that was a few steps away holding one of their other friends that was a drunken mess.

“I have Dae-jun and Joon to take home, I’m the designated driver tonight. And i have you to take also, of course.”

So he wasn’t asking when he offered her a ride he actually planned to take her since the start.

“Jung doesn’t like Joon much so it’s better that she took a taxi.” He added.

Jung, Jinki’s girlfriend didn’t like anyone anyway but Ha Yun didn’t make a comment.

“Shall we go home?” Jinki asked.

Ha Yun nodded her head gladly, following after him, admiring the way he walked and how the muscles of his back flexed, without knowing that maybe she wouldn’t see that again.

 

 

 

 

#   **♦** Jinki  **♦**

 

Lee Jinki woke up like every other morning and got ready for work. He had a small bookstore on the center of Seoul that his grandfather left him. His parents always encouraged him to study to be an engineer but he end up choosing business and decided to keep the bookstore open on his grandfather’s memory. He had only two employees but the bookstore was doing good, just enough to cover his expenses and give him enough to have a good normal life.

Every time he told girls about what he did they would get all smitten with it, the romantic idea of a man like him ruling a bookstore. Ha Yun was different. She didn’t have the chance to go to college even if she we wanted and end up working on her fathers family business. She actualy saw behind the romantic idea of the bookstore and warned him about how hard it is to have your own business.

That was one of the reasons he liked her so much. She was realistic, always scolded him when she felt like she had to and always honest...well most of the times.

There was something she wasn’t honest about and Jinki feared the day she would be, because then she would reveal him what she felt for him.

He was almost sure Ha Yun liked him more than a friend and that worried him because he didn’t want to lose her friendship. He knew how dating someone, becoming intimate with someone in a romantic way could ruin friendships and be didn’t want to lose her. She was special to him. That’s why he also didn’t try to analyze what he felt for her. It was maybe tenderness or fraternal love but whatever it was it wasn’t sexual or romantic and he preferred things to be that way.

That morning he left for work like always, listening to music on the radio, that one of his close friends, a DJ called Jonghyun, was playing.

Jinki yawned remembering the night before and Ha Yun laughing expression when they left Joon home and he feel against the door.

His good mood diminished a little when his phone rang and he checked that it was Jung. He would call her later. It wasn’t safe while he was driving and he didn’t want to talk with her yet. Lately their relationship wasn’t doing good and it worried him. Her selfishness troubled him and he didn’t know how to deal with it. He liked her but…

The first accords of one of his favorite songs started to play and Jinki hummed to the song absentmindedly not realizing the car running at high speed coming in the direction of his car.

In a second his life was changed forever.


	2. Step 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Promises are made when Jinki's life has a turn for worse.

###  _“The truth is that I feel totally helpless, or totally inconsolable, to be more honest. I’m not trying to hide it, but it’s something you’re not to worry about.”_

The Orange Girl, Jostein Gaarder

 

#  ♦ Jinki ♦

Jinki stared at the white ceiling of the hospital bedroom he was in. He could hear the faint sound of someone crying in pain in the bed next to his but he couldn’t control his body to move his head and look at that person.

He barely could think or speak and he knew why. It was the painkillers and drugs they gave him so he would stay still and stop trying to leave the bed and hurt himself.

Because that’s what people normally do when they wake up. They open their eyes and try to stand up. However his legs didn’t obey to him when he tried to stand up confused with the reason why he was at the hospital, the memories of the car accident coming to him slowly. They weren’t many anyway but he remembered seeing the car just before it crashed against his and what he felt. That dreadful last thought before everything went black.

_I’m going to die! This is it!_

He didn’t have time to think about his parents that were at the moment talking with his doctor arranging to transfer Jinki to a, expensive private room; he couldn’t think about his friends or his girlfriend or Ha Yun. It was too quick!

Once he remembered what happened, Jinki sighed of relief because he didn’t die.

He was alive.

However, his relief soon became panic when he barely could move, when his legs didn’t obey him.

Jinki tried to move on the bed and used his arms to pull his body up, screaming with the pain it was giving to him. He didn’t manage to do much before he fell from the bed, his body hurting all over, his head burning.

_He couldn’t walk! He couldn’t walk! He couldn’t walk!_

That was the only thing on his mind when the nurses picked him from the floor and laid him back on the bed.

He heard the doctor explain to him about his condition, about how he was lucky and didn’t suffer major wounds. How they would take the bandages off from his head soon and how lucky he was that he had 60% of chances of fully recover the sensibility of his legs and restart walking. He was going to be fine if he worked hard during his recovery. It was 60% and that was a lot.

However for Jinki, it wasn’t 60% of chances of becoming healthy again, it was 40% of being disabled all his life, dependent on others, incomplete.

With that realization, came the wish that he should have died at the accident. That death would have been better.

For Jinki, making his parents and the ones he loved going through that was worse than death.

That’s when he tried to leave the bed again, fighting with his doctor and one nurse that came to help. He was sure that if he placed his feet on the floor he would be able to do it again. His body would remember something that was so easy to do and now seemed impossible. He would walk again!

_Let me go. I can walk! I know I can! This is a mistake!_

He screamed over and over again, tears of indignation falling from his eyes.

His parents entered the room then and he could see his mother crying against his father both already knowing about how he couldn’t walk now. Not that different from the baby who couldn’t walk and they raised.

He couldn’t be a burden for them, he didn’t want to.

“I should have died...” Jinki said to himself, repeating it over and over again, to his mother’s desperation.

That’s when the nurse sedated him and made him lie back on the bed, leaving him looking at the ceiling alone, what he screamed replaying on his head because he wasn’t able to say it anymore, tears drying on the skin of his cheeks.

It was better if he had died.

 

 

# ♦ Ha Yun ♦

 

Ha Yun hesitantly entered the bedroom, still holding the used paper tissue she used to clean her tears while she was speaking with Jinki parents.

The driver of the car that crashed against his was drunk and unfairly he managed to escape the accident with minor injuries. 

And Jinki...It was true. He couldn’t walk right now and he only had 60% of chance of doing it again.

The world was so unfair!

Right now he was sleeping, heavily sedated because he didn’t react well to the news.

Of course, he didn’t react well. Ever since he was young Jinki was used to be very independent, he would help out his grandfather at the bookstore, he liked to go out alone to drink, and he loved to try new things was it sport related or simply the new restaurant down the street from where he lived.

He moved out of his parents’ house once he had money to do so and now, now he probably felt like he lost all of his freedom.

And all was taken from him just because someone was stupid and selfish enough to drive under alcohol influence.

Ha Yun slowly approached the bed and admired his sleeping profile. He cried because she could still see how wet his cheeks were and Ha Yun caressed his cheek softly, tracing where the tears slide down his skin before.

Whatever happened to him it wouldn’t change what she felt. Not in a million years! He was still the same Jinki, with his easy smile and stupid puns, the one that worried about her and asked her if she ate well, her best friend. Yes, he couldn’t walk but she was sure he was strong enough to make table turns and get back on his feet. No pun intended.

Maybe she wasn’t that different from him, or maybe the fact that she admired him so much made her similar to who he was. Whichever the case, Ha Yun knew that she needed to stay by his side more than ever.

There was no mistake that she was the closest to him or his parents wouldn’t have called her first, even before his girlfriend. Ha Yun knew that this was her time to help him as he helped her in the past, was it during the hard high school years when she barely had time to study helping her parents at the store and Jinki would take notes for her, was it when she had to give up going to college because her parents divorced, was it every day just by making her smile and think that there was always a better tomorrow waiting for her.

It was her chance to hold his hand and actually pay him back for those years of friendship he gave to her.

That’s what she did, Ha Yun grabbed his hand gently and warmed his cold fingers rubbing them with hers. If she could warm him up a little bit every day she would be satisfied.

“I’m going to take care of you Jinki.” She didn’t know how but she would do it. “I’ll make you smile again.”

The door of Jinki’s private bedroom was open again and the blonde woman entered it. She was Jinki’s girlfriend and Ha Yun greeted her. The woman approached both slowly, her eyes looking horrified at Jinki.

Ha Yun didn’t even move, her hand still holding his.

“Is it true that he can’t walk?” Jung asked not even touching him as if whatever sickness he had could pass to her if she did.

That confused Ha Yun since it was the first thing she did. She needed to touch him to see that he was still there alive, that somehow a miracle happened and he still had a second chance to live. That she still had a second chance to love him.

“For now! He will recover, I’m sure!”

The blonde woman stepped back horrified and Ha Yun held into Jinki’s hand firmly her eyes getting teary.

She wasn’t going to let go of him. Even if everyone stepped out of his life she wouldn’t.

If he couldn’t walk away from her then she wouldn’t walk away from him either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I didn't update the fic. I had no idea someone actually read it here. I'll post a few more chapters in case someone is still out there reading them.


	3. Step3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ha Yun tries to reach a very hurt and desolated Jinki and their relationship takes a small step forward.

###  _“We can't own each other's past. The question is whether we have a future together.”_

### The Orange Girl, Jostein Gaarder

 

 

#  ♦ Jinki ♦

 

“I want to focus on my career now. It’s the first time I get a promotion and I’m still young!” Jung said not even sure that Jinki was looking at her because she wasn’t looking at him either, not able to face and lie to that man that wasn’t the one she learned to love. The truth was that she didn’t want to be the nurse of a crippled man. She was young and pretty and she had her whole life in front of her. She could do much better and find someone that was complete and normal.

Jinki didn’t look at her, his tired eyes that burned so much from all the crying and lack of natural rest were on the white sheets of his bed.

“I understand.” He mumbled lifelessly. It wasn’t a lie. He did understand. Who would want to be with him now when he couldn’t work, when he couldn't take her out on a normal date, walk beside her, be independent...damn he wasn’t even sure if he was able to have sex again.

He bit his lower lip, his pride as a man and a person being completely destroyed.

She was right. She needed to save herself from that “prison” beside him before it was too late.

If only he could save his parents from that. His mother was already making plans for when he left the hospital to go live with them, his father was already speaking about changing his childhood bedroom to easily accommodate a bigger bed and everything a man with a disability needed.

A disability...the word hurt him. It was as if he was an anomaly, an error of nature, a book that wasn’t printed well. Sometimes he used to receive boxes of books with a printing problem. They were often sent back and the paper used on them was recycled to make new books.

Jinki wasn’t made of paper so sadly he couldn’t even be recycled and used to do something good, something that was not an anomaly.

“I’m going now!” Jung said hesitating, wondering if she should kiss his cheek as a goodbye gesture or tell him to be strong and fight to get his health back.

She loved him but she was making the best decision.

“Goodbye!” Jinki said raising his eyes to her. He probably looked like shit because Jung uncomfortably stepped away from the bed and left the room giving up on the kiss or on telling him anything.

Jinki sat on the bed staring out the window. Beside him, on the table was a book that his parents said that Ha Yun left there. Supposedly she visited while he was sleeping, the first one who visited him, and then she left the book saying she would come back to read for him.

It was called The Orange Girl.

That made him smile bitterly. He couldn’t walk but he could read. If he wanted he could grab that book and read it but he didn’t want to, he wanted her to read it for him because that meant that someone besides his parents actually wanted to still be a part of his life, even if he was useless now.

Maybe it was best that she didn’t return anymore. He knew about what she felt for him and he knew how she probably pitied him and was suffering as much as his parents with what happened. She should do the same Jung did. She should say goodbye to him and keep going on with her life.

It was so much easier for everyone if he had truly died on the accident.

The book had the most boring cover but still, Jinki grabbed it. Pity he read it before, years ago.

 

 

#  ♦ Ha Yun ♦

Ha Yun entered the bedroom knowing that Jinki was inside and probably didn’t want to see her at all. She heard from her other friends how he barely spoke to them and if he did how he was rude and aloof. She heard about that bitch he used to call girlfriend and what she did to him.

How could she dare to break up with him not because she didn’t like him anymore but because she saw him as an obstacle on her perfect life? Jinki wasn’t an obstacle, he wasn’t a stone on her path, Jinki was the sun and everyone knows that even if clouds are covering the sun, that star is still behind them, shining as brightly as ever waiting for the clouds to move away. Ha Yun would wait. She didn’t mind waiting as long as that meant that Jinki would smile again winning his will to live.

The truth was that she also avoided him the last week. She was afraid of how she would react in front of him. Last time Ha Yun was glad he was sleeping because she couldn’t stop crying and he had already his mother crying by his bed every day. He didn’t need another weak person moping around, he needed someone that would tell him that things would be ok, that being alive was the most important.

It wasn’t as if she could avoid him forever, she didn’t want it either so that day she decided to face him.

Ha Yun stepped inside the bedroom and found Jinki sitting on his bed, wearing a black pajama, his legs covered with a green blanket.

He was looking at the window and she hesitated at the door admiring his profile. He was so beautiful, with his full lips and sharp chin, his dark hair falling on his eyes and over his ears that she loved.

He heard her enter the bedroom and moved his eyes to her. They were wet as if he has been crying and her heart ached painfully.

“Hi!” she greeted with a weak voice, swallowing the pain and the desire to run to him and hug him instead. He deserved a hug for being so brave, for being there alive.

“What are you doing here?” He asked with a husky voice, a hint of rudeness on it.

Ha Yun spotted the tray with food untouched on the bedside table. “You didn’t eat yet?” she heard from his mother about how he didn’t have much appetite. That was weird since Jinki loved to eat but made sense due to his current state.

“What are you doing here?” He repeated the question and Ha Yun walked closer to the bed.

“I missed you. I came to see you!”

“Why? To pity me like the others? “

The anger on his voice was touchable but she was ready for that and wasn’t going to back away now.

It wasn’t as if he was mad with her. He was mad with the world, with that terrible faith that bestowed on him.

Also, Ha Yun promised their friends and even his parents that she would cheer him up.

“You didn’t visit me at the hospital before.” He added not giving her time to answer to his previous accusation.

“I did! You were sleeping! I even brought you a book!”

“Better sleep forever…” He mumbled under his breath and Ha Yun grabbed his hand hurt with what he said.

She knew how sometimes people reacted like that after what happened to him, how they often needed psychological help and even sometimes tried to commit suicide.

She was sure that Jinki wouldn’t take his own life but thinking like that wouldn’t help on his recovery at all.

He pulled his hand away, his eyes sparkling with anger “DO NOT TOUCH ME!”

She flinched and he licked his lips “I don’t require attention from anyone!” He rubbed his temple “I don’t deserve it.”

“You do!” Ha Yun said stubbornly grabbing his hand again.

“STOP THAT!”

“YA! YOU STOP THAT!” she screamed back at him making him widen his eyes surprised.

Yes, she was always arguing with most of their friends but she never ever screamed with him.

“Stop blaming yourself, stop saying things as if your life isn’t precious!” she begged biting her lower lip so she wouldn’t cry.

“I should have died in that car accident! I should have!” Jinki said firmly, tears on his eyes “Then I wouldn’t be this useless person!”

“You are not useless! You can recover. The doctor said that there is 60% of chances of you recovering. I believe you can!”

“What if I don’t?” He asked with a tiny voice, a tear falling from his eye. He was scared, scared to stay like that forever.

“Then I still will love you the same. We all will.” it was the truth, of course, she wanted him to walk again but if he didn’t it wouldn’t matter. Her feeling towards him wouldn’t change.

Her words made him pale and he softly took his hand away from hers. “I’m not a complete man anymore! I can’t walk! I can’t do what a man should do...!” He said embarrassed looking at the covers of his bed.

“To me, you are still the best and you can do anything even if you don't walk!” Ha Yun confessed, blushing a little. He frowned at her words and pushed the covers so she could see his legs.

“I can’t move them….see?!” He clutched his teeth “I’m trying to move them and nothing!”

Ha Yun placed her hand on his thigh and he swallowed nervously.

“Can you feel it?”

“Yes…”

“The doctor said that that was a good sign, that with time and therapy you would be able to walk. You need to believe in that. You need to work hard.”

He didn’t answer, his dead eyes on his now dead legs.

“Please don’t say that you should have died. It breaks my heart!”

He looked up at her. “Can you please leave and never come back?”

“What?” The sudden request surprised Ha Yun.

“The person I am right now can’t be with anyone. Even my girlfriend knew it and left me, I’m a burden and…” He knew about her feelings. He was telling her to give up and Ha Yun tilted her head near tears again.

“…And I know that I’m not only a friend to you.” He added making her embarrassed.

That was the first time he implied that she had deeper feelings for him. Nothing ever happened between them and yet she knew that she was special to him.

 “Jinki…I...”

“Can you? Leave?” his pouty red lips and teary eyes broke her heart but she could never do what he was asking her.

“Never!”

“Hey…listen to me!”

She ignored his plea and leaned forward kissing him.

Ha Yun probably shouldn’t have done it but that shut him up. She was expecting him to push her away but instead, he kissed her back and as softly as it started their kiss ended.

It tasted salty for both their tears and yet it was the best kiss she ever shared with anyone.

“I can’t love you.” He said softly breaking her heart.

 It was ok, she knew he didn’t have feelings like that for her and the feelings she had were enough for both.  Ha Yun would never be like Jung that abandoned him.

“It’s ok. I’m not going to leave you or give up on you. I’ll love you until you are able to walk again. Then you can ask me to leave you alone. Only then!”

He blinked his eyes, her words sinking in, and she cupped his face again, kissing his lips and then his cheek and forehead as tenderly as she mastered, offering him a piece of the love she had to give him.

She was going to take care of him now, to help him fight against that cruel faith.

 “We can’t do this…” He said. “It’s not fair to you and...”

“I don’t care!” she said firmly brushing the tears away from his cheek. “Just focus on being able to run away from me!”

For a moment she was scared that her dark tasteless joke would make him upset but he smiled instead.

“That one was good!”

That day Ha Yun got her first victory. She made him smile. 


	4. Step 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ha Yun becomes the presence in Jinki's life that he needed the most.

###  _“I noticed nothing that Sunday except that the Orange Girl was missing. I only had eyes for what wasn’t there.”_

### The Orange Girl, Jostein Gaarder

 

 

#  ♦ Jinki ♦

 

_“Would you have chosen to live a life on earth at some point, whether short or long, in a hundred thousand or a hundred million years? Or would you have refused to join in the game because you didn’t like the rules?”_

Ha-Yun read from the book and Jinki barely looked at her even though he was listening to her calm sweet voice.

He knew why she chose that book because he read it before. He didn’t tell her though, pretending to never have heard the story because he liked to hear her voice too much, because even though he didn’t admit, those hours she spent by his side talking about nonsense or reading were the best hours of his day.

 

_“I asked myself the same question many times during the past few weeks. Would I have elected to live a life on Earth in the firm knowledge that I’d suddenly be torn away from it, and perhaps in the middle of intoxicating happiness?”_

 

The book was about the relationship of a father and a son but it was more than that, it was about cherishing the time we have on Earth, about cherishing the ones we met before we die.

 

It was now reaching the main point of it. Would you choose to live knowing that you would die?

He knew why she was reading it. He couldn’t walk and yet he was alive. He could have not chosen to live at all but then wouldn’t he be missing the good things that happened to him until then, and the ones that would follow?!

 

_“If I’d chosen never to the foot inside the great fairytale, I’d never have known what I’ve lost. Do you see what I’m getting at? Sometimes it’s worse for us human beings to lose something dear to us than never to have had it at all.”_

 

She stopped reading there raising her eyes from the book to him and Jinki could feel her gaze on him and the disappointment on it. He barely reacted to what she read and that seemed to sadden her more day by day.

It has been almost a month since he entered the hospital since he stopped to walk and he knew that soon he would have to leave the hospital and accept the fact that he was now a disabled person. Once he left that bed it would be real, he won’t be a patient anymore. He will be just him, a man that can’t walk.

“Does it annoy you that I come every day?” Ha Yun asked making him finally look at her.

Some days he could notice her red eyes and he knew she cried, others she would look really tired and he knew that she was lying saying that she wasn’t overworking just to meet him.

Still, everyday Ha Yun entered his room smiling, every day she would try to make him smile and fail and everyday she would scold him once he mentioned something like _death_.

“Not really!” He loved that she came every day. He would count the minutes to see her again because when she was beside him he didn’t feel alone anymore, he felt like the old Lee Jinki. However it was hard for him to smile, it was hard for him not to feel sad or angry.

If only she knew how he would smile internally every time he saw her enter his bedroom.

Ha Yun marked the page she was at with an old yellow post it and closed the book.

Jinki took his time admiring her features, her long nose and small lips, her small eyes like his, her rebel dark black hair with red highlights falling from her ponytail.

Ha Yun was actually pretty and sometimes he wondered why she wasn’t married yet.

He knew she had her share of men interested on her but she seemed to always push them away.

It was probably his fault and the feelings she had for him. And now, once again he was making her stay by his side like a selfish bastard.

“Go home!” He said suddenly, rudely.

He was upset with himself; upset that he was doing that to her. “You annoy me!” He added trying to hurt her, to make her not come back as he did with his other friends that slowly stopped coming asking her for news instead.

But like so many times before Ha Yun barely flinched and looked at him instead biting her lower lip.

“What if I do that someday? What if I don’t come back tomorrow? Will you miss me?”

Yes, he thought to himself. He would miss her deeply but it was the right thing to do.

“No.” He lied.

“Will it make you feel better if I start to ignore you or hate you? Will it make you walk?” She asked crossing her arms upset, raising her nose in the air like the sassy girl she was.

Jinki licked his lips without an answer to give and she smiled.

He would have smiled too if he remembered how to do it.

“I thought so!” She placed the book on the bedside table and stretched her arms in the air cutely. However, his eyes moved down her body noticing the curves of her chest and down.

Ha Yun was a beautiful woman in every way and she didn’t deserve that.

“Go home, please!” He asked this time with a gentle voice “You don’t deserve this!”

“You don’t deserve this either.” She said caressing his leg over the blankets “And yet here we are. We make our own decisions and we have to be responsible for them. Me staying with you is my own decision!” She patted his leg “This wasn’t your decision so...I won’t let you miss me! I’ll stay until you can run away!”

Her words made him emotional and he had to look away not to cry.

Ha Yun was truly beautiful and she was right.

He would miss her.

 

 

# ♦ Ha Yun ♦

 

“I have a surprise for you!” Ha Yun said opening the plastic bag she brought and taking a drawing notebook from it and a box with coloring pens.

She showed them to Jinki managing her best smile, expecting a frown from him but instead he looked at her interested, like a bunny waiting for a treat. He was in a good mood then and Ha Yun smiled even brighter. She loved when he was in a good mood, that meant that he wouldn’t scream with her that day, that he wouldn’t call himself a cripple, that that day she didn’t need to read the book because he would play with her and speak with her instead.

“What are we going to do?” He asked as if she only left the room for five minutes and came back when she did leave him the previous day.

“Let’s draw. You said you like to draw right?” She remembered how he used to make small cute doodles on the side of the pages of his notebooks “Let’s draw animals and make a game! A guessing game!”

His eyes shine a little and he grabbed the box with pens taking one from inside it.

“Let’s draw each other’s faces instead. And see who is the best at it!”

It was the first time he made a suggestion so she brightly accepted it and sat in front of him. Anything that required her to look at him for long minutes was a good idea. Ha Yun grabbed a pen and started drawing on her sketchbook, her eyes moving from the paper to him. She would never draw him, she had no skills for that and even if she did he was too beautiful for it to ever be captured on paper.

“You should smile!” She said happily that his mind was away from what he missed, from his legs and the skill he forgot; and was somewhere else, currently on her face.

Yes, he was looking at her, he was drawing her and he was doing it barely looking at the paper, his gaze on her making her uncomfortable.

“I should!” he said, the corners of his lips moving upwards slightly giving her a small smile but that was enough to take her breath away.

Lee Jinki was looking at her, smiling at her, his gaze never wavering.

“Aren’t you drawing?” she asked blushing, hiding her face behind the sketchbook.

He pulled it away so he could see her, his actions making her heart beast faster. She would never resist those eyes. She was never able to.

“Stop hiding!” he said softly.

“I’m not!” she answered, she never hid from him, she was always there beside him and she was glad that he was finally realizing it.

“I’m finished!” he said then, making her gasp because she barely saw him draw anything. He turned the sketchbook to her and Ha Yun stared at the drawing before laughing. It was a simple stick figure with hair and a face and she looked horrible in it.

“What?” he asked surprised with her reaction.

“I look so ugly…omo… you truly see me like that???!”

He turned the sketch to him his eyes lingering on the trails of ink in it.

“I think it’s beautiful!”

She laughed a lot longer watching him pout cutely until she realized that he just called her beautiful.

“Aaaah maybe we should play your game next!” he said pensively ignoring the way her heart was going crazy with his silly drawing and words.


	5. Step 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ha Yun and Jinki reach a tense moment when she pushes him to move forward.

**_“I'm not just some butterfly for you to catch.”_ **

#### The Orange Girl, Jostein Gaarder

 

#  ♦ Jinki ♦

 

That day Ha Yun was moving around Jinki uneasy. She barely read the book to him, although they reached her favorite part - when the main’s character father finally reunites with the Orange Girl - and she was trying really hard to smile.

Jinki knew something was wrong and he was tempted to ask but he was in a foul mood that day.

His head hurt very much, one of his old friends came to visit and he could see the pity on his eyes, the doctor called his parents to speak with them and worse he still couldn’t move his legs.

Maybe Ha Yun felt his uneasiness because she turned off the tv they were pretending to watch and rose up from her seat.

“I have a surprise for you today!” she announced placing both her hands on his bed near his dead legs.

“Really?” he asked not that excited. Her surprises were normally either a snack he liked or a new game or a friend that came with her. “I don’t feel hungry and I don’t want to see anyone right now or play any games.”

“I know but this surprise you can’t eat and it’s not alive! Also, it’s not a game! Wait for a second!” She said leaving the bedroom and him alone.

Jinki stared at the book still open beside him and grabbed it, his eyes moving on the words.

He then closed it before placing it over the bedside table his attention returning to the door where Ha Yun was now.

She pushed a wheelchair closer to his bed and Jinki looked at it knowing exactly what it meant.

That was the reason she was nervous the whole time, the reason the doctor called his parents. It was time for him to start leaving the bed, to start his life as a disabled person.

“I thought that maybe we could have a picnic outside. It’s a sunny day and the hospital has a beautiful garden. Besides your doctor said it was a great idea!”

Jinki lifeless eyes moved to hers and Ha Yun looked at him apprehensively. He hated it. He hated the idea and what that meant but she was probably told to insist, that the best way for recovery was for him to stop thinking of himself as a person dying. He needed to get out of depression, he needed to go out and see the world. He almost could hear the doctor saying that to her and his parents because it was the same he told him the day before when he mentioned the chair.

“I don’t want to.” He simply said.

“B-but I made kimbap and a lot of delicious things for you to try!”

“I said that I’m not hungry!” He insisted and for a while, Ha Yun seemed to accept it. However, she pulled the covers from over his legs making him stare at her.

“What the hell are you doing?” He asked angrily.

“I’m taking you out on a picnic because I spent a lot of time preparing it and you are a gentleman and as a gentleman, you need to accompany me!”

He groaned upset pulling her hands away just when she grabbed his legs trying to pull him to the edge of the bed. It was worthless since he was heavier and stronger than her but she didn’t seem to want to stop, still fighting against him, her hands firmly grabbing his legs.

“CAN YOU STOP WITH THAT?” Jinki screamed, “I'M NOT YOUR PET!”

She stopped immediately raising her teary eyes to him making him swallow in regret. Maybe he shouldn’t have yelled at her but still, she needed to respect his will.

“I don’t want to go.”

“Why? Because suddenly the cripple has feelings and a will?”

Her words hit him exactly where it hurt.

“I thought you preferred to die! That there was no Lee Jinki inside you anymore…just a hollow shell…guess I was wrong.”

He bit his lower lip divided between saying he was sorry and screaming with her.

Ha Yun was right. He was still Lee Jinki even if he couldn’t walk.

“Your mother taught me how to do fried chicken the way you love. I slept only two hours last night to prepare everything and you know why?”

He did. Because she loved him! The thought of her losing her rare hours of sleep to do that for him made him feel loved.

“I know you are not a pet. I just really wanted to show you how life outside this bedroom is still the same whether you walk or not. Humans adapt Jinki….you need to stop hiding and start living your life again. Only that way you will recover.”

She took a deep breath after speaking as if she was holding that inside her for days and was now finally able to say it, tears of anger and frustration falling down her cheeks.

“Spicy fried chicken?” He asked with a neutral voice, knowing that she was right. He was a gentleman after all.

“Yes!” Ha Yun smiled beautifully moving her hand on the mattress beside him. That caught his attention even if she didn’t seem to notice. How their fingers touched slightly…

It wasn’t as if it was the first time they touched each other but somehow that moment was different for Jinki.

She was there, alive, warm, beside him, losing hours of her life arguing, thinking of him, wanting to help him not because he was his blood, just because she liked him. If that wasn’t special he didn’t know what was.

“Can you help me?” He asked moving his head in the direction of the chair.

“I’ll call a nurse to help!” She said turning around with a spring in her step that made him smile. 

 

 

 

 

#  ♦ Ha Yun ♦

 

Ha Yun was happy. She made him come outside and even though he was silent beside her watching the trees she knew she had made him give a step closer to recovery.

He also praised her food and ate a lot which was rare for him ever since he had the accident.

She couldn’t wait to tell his mother how he ate all the fried chicken and even licked his fingers. And it was the one she cooked. She couldn’t be more elated.

“We should play a game!” She suggested because he seemed to be falling into depression again, his silence worrying her.

“A game? We play a lot of games!”

“Games are fun! You like games!” she said sitting on the bench beside his chair. He often played games on his phone all the time but ever since he entered the hospital his phone was always forgotten beside his bed. It was as if Jinki didn’t care anymore about the outside world, about the games or other things that used to make him happy. Now he was more focused on his pain than anything else.

“Yes let’s try to find things on the shapes of the clouds!”

He looked at her amused, judging her because she chose a childish game to do and that only made her happy. That was her old Jinki forgetting about his wounds and just being himself.

“How old are you?” He asked chuckling, the beautiful sound making her lean closer to him.

“We are always children at heart. Also, it’s not like you can call yourself an adult either!”

He frowned moving his eyebrows cutely making her laugh but he didn’t deny her accusations.

“So are you in?”

He nodded his head and both looked at the sky trying to be the first one to find one to share with the other.

“There!” He said quickly pointing at a huge cloud “That’s a hippo!”

“Hey!” She looked at it “It’s more like a sheep.”

Jinki licked his lips “How can it be a sheep? It’s huge!”

“It’s a mutant giant sheep then!” Ha Yun shrugged her shoulders and Jinki mumbled an _aigo_ , his eyes still on the sky.

“That one is a one leg chicken.” She said pointing at another cloud making Jinki tilt his head to see it behind the trees.

“What the hell!” He exclaimed while she laughed out loud at his reaction “You are terrible at this game. It doesn’t look like a chicken at all.”

“What does it look like then?” Ha Yun asked making him stare at it for a long time.

“A cloud!”

She couldn’t argue with that and he smiled softly.

“This game is kinda stupid!” He said rubbing his ear, his attention moving from the clouds to something else below.

A toddler was walking on the grass followed by his parents, the father holding his small hand while he did some uneasy steps, the mother watching them. They were probably going to visit someone at the same hospital.

Ha Yun wondered why that seemed to catch his full attention and she looked at him curiously.

He glanced at her by the corner of his eyes before he looked away hiding his teary eyes from her.

Then it hit her.

Even that toddler could do something he couldn’t. He was slowly developing that skill Jinki lost and he had a whole life in front of him. He could also build a family and have kids.

Ha Yun knew how that seemed to worry Jinki too. He didn’t speak to her about those worries but he did share them with his doctor.

_Was he still a man?!_

 Yes, he was. Apparently, he still could get aroused, he was still a man, and he could have children even if he didn’t walk. He also felt a tingling sensation on his legs and sometimes he was able to feel when others touched him.

He would walk again. She was sure he would and she just hoped he would start to believe in it soon.

Ha Yun stood up from the bench and she walked behind the wheelchair. She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a tight back hug, rubbing her cheek against the back of his head. He didn’t push her away so that was a good sign.

“Someday you will also grab your son's hand and walk beside him like that.” She felt him sob but he didn’t say anything “I’m 100% sure of it as you are of that cloud looking like a cloud!”

He released a soft cry and she knew he found her comment funny in a way.

Ha Yun waited until he stopped crying, her arms around him. She hugged him before but never like that, never with that meaning.

She closed her eyes feeling him cry in silence on her embrace, hiding his face with his hands and she was sure of it. Wherever he would go she would follow.

She did promise it to him and she would do it. The only way to get rid of her now was by running very far away from her and she hoped he would be able to do it someday even if that meant breaking her heart.  


	6. Step 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ha Yun finishes reading the book to Jinki and he surprises her. Big decisions are made when Jinki takes a step forward in his recovery.

_**“No other act of intimacy can compete with a couple gazing at each other not able to look away.”** _

### The Orange Girl, Jostein Gaarder

 

#  ♦ Ha Yun ♦

 

Ha Yun moved her knight on the chess board and then looked at Jinki teasingly.

She was so close to winning the game and she was even surprised with how badly he was playing since he was the smartest and the best player she knew.

She watched his Adam’s apple move and he his eyes drifted away from her to the board.

He seemed nervous, not sure what to do in the game.

“You can use the bishop to eat my knight you know!” She suggested rubbing her arm, feeling the hot sun caressing her skin.

It was a beautiful summer day and perfect to go out on a date. She felt as if she was on a date with him, under the big old tree of the hospital garden.

It was Jinki’s last week at the hospital and lately his mood has gone back to worse again with the fact that he had to face the real life outside the hospital. He was thin now, his chubby cheeks not as rosy as they were before. But Ha Yun was positive about his recovery.

At least he still smiled when he was around her and lately they had several interesting conversations about anything. He never mentioned the word death anymore either.

He hesitated, his fingers over the black bishop but still he moved it eating her knight. Ha Yun released an upset fake interjection since she was the one who suggested it and that made him smile.

“You are good at this!” She said teasingly and Jinki pushed her arm lightly.

“Stop that! I’m just tired! That’s why I’m not playing well!”

“Sure!”

“I really liked the ending of the book!”

His comment made her nod her head. Earlier that afternoon they finished reading the book.

“Actually I have something to confess to you!”

That caught her full attention and Ha Yun completely forgot about the chess game, instead she leaned forward over the plastic table she used to place the game board.

“I’ve read that book before.”

She blinked her eyes until she realized what he meant. “You did? Then why…?”

“I like how you read. Your voice was soothing.”

That made her blush slightly and Ha Yun awkwardly leaned back not sure what to say.

“It is truly a lottery how we end up being born into this world. It all feels like a big game….I mean this life. How things happen and suddenly change everything. How people change, how feelings change…”

His gaze on her was making her nervous and that was new. She never felt like that before. There was something different about the way he was looking at her.

“Make your move!” He added making her grab a random pawn moving it forward.

“Checkmate!” He announced moving his knight forward in the direction of her King.

However, she felt as if he was doing checkmate on her heart instead.

“You win!” She gave up immediately making him laugh.

He always won when feelings were involved. He was the King and enough to beat all of her game pieces.

“I wish I could eat hallabongs....”

That was a special type of orange that was normally found only in Jeju Island and were rather expensive.

“I never went to Jeju Island before so I never tried them!” She answered wondering why he changed the topic of the conversation so suddenly.

“I went with my parents once. They bought a box of them and they were extremely expensive as they were delicious.”

“Heard newlyweds eat them.” Ha Yun remarked collecting all the pieces from the board.

“I hope that someday I can go back there…” His comment made her raise her eyes from the board. “Maybe you can go with me!”

That was good. He was making plans, elaborating wishes for the future...wishes where she was included.

Jeju Island together!

“Maybe you can try hallabongs with me.”

Eat hallabongs together!

“W-why are you talking about that?” She asked nervously avoiding looking at him, the sun being a pretense for her to hide her eyes under her hand.

“Because of the book. The orange girl! She is right...there are no two oranges that look the same, like there are not two people that look the same. Everyone is unique and it’s somehow a miracle that you get to find a really good rare orange in the middle of all the others...like Hallabongs….”

“That doesn’t make much sense!” she laughed “A really good orange! They are not even oranges...it’s a different fruit!” Ha Yun uncovered her eyes blinking them with the sun but she could see the way he was looking at her and it still made her feel nervous. 

 

 

 

# ♦ Jinki ♦

 

“We can empty the dining room and make a nice cozy bedroom for you.” Jinki’s mother said looking at her husband for support.

“Yes. I can move the bed from the guest room down…”

“I want to stay at my place!” Jinki insisted interrupting his father. “I don’t want to go back to your place. I have a small ground floor house and I can live alone. I don’t want to be a burden to you!”

“You are not a burden! You are our son!” His mother insisted.

Jinki groaned upset, his eyes moving to the woman at the edge of his bed. Ha Yun was there of course, like always, beside him, Watching the conversation and not saying anything.

She smiled at him softly as if wanting to give him strength and Jinki felt the need to ask her for her opinion.

“What do you think?” She seemed startled with his question as if she wasn’t expecting that he would notice her presence. Of course he noticed it. “Should I go back to my parents' place to be treated like a baby or learn to live alone with my disability?”

She bit her lower lip and tucked her black hair behind her ear as if she was thinking about the best way to tell him what she thought.

“Well you know what I have to say about this disability thing...you can do rehabilitation and walk again…”

He closed his eyes because of course, she would insist on that madness that he would recover.

“Just answer my question and stop analyzing the words I use in it!”

Ha Yun rubbed her arm and then grasped the edge of the bed “I think you should do what you feel more comfortable doing. What will make you happy!”

“SEE?” He raised his arm in victory, looking at his parents “She agrees with me! I should live alone!”

“You can’t be all alone...I mean what if you feel sick or you fall from the bed or something happens?” His mother asked worriedly.

“I won’t die...and if I do...I die and that’s it!”

Ha Yun hit him on his leg and Jinki looked at her surprised that he actually felt it.

“If you say that again I’m going to hit you in the head next!”

He licked his lips looking at her amused. He loved to tease her sometimes because she would treat him as if he wasn’t disabled. She still treated him as if he was the old Lee Jinki and he loved it.

“I won’t feel well knowing you are so far away alone…” his mother said near tears and Jinki sighed.

“I can stay with him!”

Ha Yun suggestion made everyone look at her and Jinki could see how her cheeks got pinkish.

“I can stay with him during the night. He has a small guest room and I can spend the night at his apartment until he recovers. If you want….” she turned to him “If he wants!”

Jinki looked at her surprised. It wasn’t the suggestion alone that surprised him. Yes, it was amazing how far she would go to help him, to be beside him, taking her promise to another level. But he was also surprised at how her suggestion made his heart beast faster.

She was basically going to live with him. Share the same roof, the same house. He could see her everyday again. He never realized how much he was afraid of losing her visit every day, after he left the hospital.

Jinki took his time admiring her, his silence making her nervous. He knew. He could read the signs because she was doing the same thing she did when they played chess two days before.

He wasn’t sure what got into him that afternoon but he couldn’t take his eyes off of her, of the way the sun was bathing her profile making her shine in a strange miraculous way.

Then he started thinking about the Orange Girl, the character from the book and how mysteriously she looked to the main character. That wasn’t the case. Jinki knew everything about Ha Yun already and yet there were so many things he didn’t know and he never realized it. He didn’t know what her favorite fruit was, what she wanted to be when she was a kid, how she liked to sleep, how her kisses tasted…

He was so lost in thoughts about her that he almost lost the game. He did win it though.

And then he started speaking about Jeju Island and he didn’t lie. He wanted to go there with her.

When he thought about Jeju Island he thought about a magical sunny place and he was sure Ha Yun would look even more beautiful there.

“Jinki?” The voice of his mother made him come back from his daydreams and Jinki focused his eyes back on Ha Yun that was now a blushing mess, probably because he stared at her all that time.

“Are you sure about this?” He asked even though he knew the answer already.

“I always wanted to leave my father’s place and never had the money for it. So maybe we can share the expenses for a while…”

Of course, he wasn’t going to let her pay anything but she didn’t need to know that.

“That’s really good!” Jinki’s mother said hugging Ha Yun “I’ve always seen you as Jinki’s little sister!”

She wasn’t his sister though and he didn’t see her like that at all.


	7. Step 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ha Yun witnesses a moment of vulnerability of Jinki that might lead him to make some changes in his life.

_**“I can wait until my heart bleeds with sorrow.”** _

### The Orange Girl, Jostein Gaarder

 

#  ♦ Ha Yun ♦

 

Ha Yun woke up with a loud thud and she sat on her bad in full alert.

It was the third night she was sharing the house with Jinki and that was the first time she heard such a weird sound.

She stood up barefooted and grabbed her big black sweater dressing it over her underwear.

She passed by the several boxes of paperwork, Taemin, Jinki’s assistant at the bookstore has brought for him so he could slowly get back to work and walked into the hallway.

It was good that Jinki showed interest on the bookstore again, although it worried her that he didn’t want to do rehabilitation. He probably didn’t believe he could recover or was afraid that he couldn’t. Either way, she was frustrated.

“Jinki?” she called walking in the direction of his bedroom.

“Don’t come!” He said rudely making her freeze in the middle of the hallway.

Yes, he was sometimes still rude and a very hard person to deal with but things were better lately.

“Are you ok?” She asked worried.

“I’m fine!” he didn’t seem fine at all and she slowly walked to his bedroom ignoring his warning.

“I told you to not come!” He angrily remarked once she showed up at the door of his bedroom.

“Oh my God!” She cried worriedly, hastily kneeling beside him on the floor.

He probably fell from the bed and she helped him sit on the floor before she went to grab the wheelchair to help him sit on it so it would be easier to get him back on the bed.

“Please go away!” he asked avoiding looking at her and Ha Yun ignored him, pushing the chair and placing it beside him.

That’s when she noticed that he was only in his pajama pants, his chest bare. Well she was almost naked too and he could probably see her panties from the position he was in, it didn’t matter. His well-being was more important.

Ha Yun grabbed his arm and tried to pull him up but he stubbornly pulled it away and covered his pants with his hands.

That made her confused and Ha Yun stood there looking at him.

“I-I wanted to pee…” He said in a whisper making her realize that he was covering his pants and a big wet stain on it. He was trying to go to the bathroom alone but fell and then peed himself cos he couldn't get to it on time.

That almost made her tear up and Ha Yun bit her lower lip trying hard to make a poker face instead. She could do that. She could help him without making him feel even worse than he already did.

“It’s ok. It happens! There was that time I dreamed that I went to the bathroom and I peed myself in bed!”

It wasn’t entirely true since she end up waking up on time and went to the bathroom but he didn’t need to know that part and it could have happened anyway.

Jinki looked at her with such an embarrassed expression that Ha Yun crouched in front of him and placed her hands over his.

“It’s ok, Jinki. You know you don’t need to hide anything from me. I won’t judge you or…”

“I feel useless….”

“You are not useless. You are just not used to this reality yet.” She stood up “Come. Let’s clean you up!”

She helped him get on his wheelchair again and then she pushed him inside the bathroom, in silence pretending to not notice his hand covering the wet spot on his pants.

She didn’t know what to say to make him feel better. She only wanted to hug or kiss him as if he was a little kid who just got a scratch on his knee.

However, he wasn’t a kid anymore.

He was the man she loved.

 

 

#  ♦ Jinki ♦

Ha Yun helped him sit on the chair that his parents bought for the shower, so he could wash alone. They wanted to get a nurse for him during the day while Ha Yun was busy but he completely rejected the idea. Instead his parents tried to change his house until it was perfect for a disabled man.

 Jinki didn’t say anything, still feeling extremely ashamed with what happened.

He was completely useless since he couldn’t even go to the bathroom alone now. He couldn’t do anything entirely alone and even Ha Yun was there to take care of him.

It made him feel like a nonsense in her life too.

Why did it end up being like this?!

What did he do that he deserved a fate like this?!

He was near tears when she kneeled in front of him.

He didn’t expect that and he didn’t expect what she did next. She gently placed her hands on the elastic of his pants and pulled them down his waist.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking off your clothes so you can wash yourself.”

“I can do that alone!”

“Let me help you.” She asked but he stubbornly pulled her hands away from him.

“Just cos I peed myself it doesn’t mean I can’t take off my clothes!” He answered bitterly but he regretted it immediately when she looked at him with teary eyes that matched his.

“Let me help you just this time ok? Can you stop being an idiot for a while? Let me take care of you!”

He released her hands and instead watched her take his pants off, carefully, avoiding touching him too much and doing it very respectfully.

She didn’t seem embarrassed to see him only on his underwear and he knew her actions didn’t have a second intention. She was truly taking care of him.

“I’m going to pick up some clothes for you.” She announced leaving the bathroom and him alone only on his underwear.

He stared at the open door from where she disappeared wondering why she was taking such a long time.

A muffled sound coming from the bedroom caught Jinki’s attention and he realized that she was probably crying and that was the reason she was taking so long to come back.

Crying because of the mess he become, because she didn’t know how to help him. Once again he was bringing pain to someone he cared about.

He couldn't even walk to her and hug her as she did to him before. Instead he stood there alone, hearing her cry, feeling like the lowest ever.

She came back later, avoiding looking at him in the eye, and left the clothes for him near the shower over a bench announcing that she would come back once he was finished.

He took his shower after taking his underwear off and used that opportunity alone to reflect on what just happened.

He didn’t want to cry anymore but he felt empty, the memory of how she looked at him when he was on the floor replaying over and over again on his head.

It wasn’t pity.

It was sorrow.

It hurt as much as the embarrassment he felt when he couldn’t reach the bathroom on time and peed himself.  Maybe even more.

Jinki cleaned his body the best he could with a towel and then took his time pulling the underwear up his legs. When he was presentable he called her name.

She asked him to let her help him and he was going to respect her request even though he could do it alone.

Ha Yun helped him dress up his pants and when she was going to push him on the wheelchair back to the bedroom he spoke to her.

“I’m sorry.”

“Jinki…”

“I don’t want to make you cry. I never wanted to make anyone I love cry.”

She seemed a little taken aback with his words but quickly smiled at him, making an effort to change the mood. “Aigo…It’s not like you can control my tears now. I don’t cry in a long time…you know me!”

He completely saw through her lies “You cried today…and you cried just now because of me.”  She didn’t answer and he wouldn’t believe her lies anyway “I don’t like to see you cry. I wish I could do anything.”

“Then think about the physiotherapy. Do it…for you and your parents and me! For the ones you love!”

He could swear her voice changed a little when she said the last part and that was sweet. “I’ll think about it!”

She transported him on his wheelchair back to his bed seeming satisfied with his answer.

He lied down on it again with her help, realizing that she changed the covers for him while he was showering.

They didn’t share any words about what happened and he was sure she wouldn’t mention it anymore to save him from the embarrassment.

“Good night!” She said after he pulled the covers over him. “The wheelchair is beside the bed but you can call me at any time for anything. You know that right? It’s not a hassle at all. I am happy if you do it, ok?”

Why was she so desperate to please him?! It hurt him inside how she was wasting her time there, with him.

Before Ha Yun walked away he grabbed her hand. “Thank you.”

He didn’t know any other way to put down in words how thankful he was for her presence in his life.

But even thank you didn’t seem enough to describe what he felt.


End file.
